Grandmother charged in boy's death

Sha'hiim Nelligan, 8, died Saturday; neighbors say the family was loving

Updated 9:39 am, Monday, February 25, 2013

Police at 23 Mynderse St., in Schenectady Saturday Feb. 23, 2013, where an 8-year-old boy who was found unresponsive Saturday morning. The child was later pronounced dead at Ellis Hospital. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Police at 23 Mynderse St., in Schenectady Saturday Feb. 23, 2013,...

Police at 23 Mynderse St., in Schenectady Saturday Feb. 23, 2013, where an 8-year-old boy who was found unresponsive Saturday morning. The child was later pronounced dead at Ellis Hospital. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Police at 23 Mynderse St., in Schenectady Saturday Feb. 23, 2013,...

Police at 23 Mynderse St., in Schenectady Saturday Feb. 23, 2013, where an 8-year-old boy who was found unresponsive Saturday morning. The child was later pronounced dead at Ellis Hospital. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

SCHENECTADY — Police have charged the grandmother of an 8-year-old city boy in connection with his death, which was ruled a homicide Sunday after an autopsy.

In a statement, Schenectady police identified the boy as Sha'hiim Nelligan, and announced they had charged Gloria Nelligan, the boy's legal guardian, with first-degree manslaughter in connection with his death.

Officers rushed to the Nelligans' Vale neighborhood home Saturday morning, where they found Sha'hiim unconscious. He later died at Ellis Hospital.

Police did not disclose further details about the boy's injuries or how Nelligan, 43, allegedly contributed to the boy's death. The family house at 23 Mynderse Ave. is being held as a crime scene and the investigation continues, Lt. Mark McCracken said.

Neighbors and family friends who knew Sha'hiim Nelligan said he was a generous, caring kid who loved music and dancing.

Sha'hiim lived with his grandmother and three of her children, but not with his mother, said Judy Atchinson, founder of Quest, a program for troubled kids in the city. Atchinson said the boy had been coming to Quest for years and that she knew him well. She said he took ballet lessons, liked to play with her dog and was one of the more well-behaved kids in her program.

"He loved music, he loved to sing and dance," Atchinson said. She added that the boy, his grandmother and nieces would regularly take donated bread and cookies and dole them out to neighbors. "They are a very giving family, very close-knit," Atchinson said. "They came to visit me on Christmas, Valentine's Day, my birthday."

Gaston Hooks Jr. and his family have lived near the Nelligan home at 26 Mynderse Street for decades, and has known Gloria Nelligan for at least 20 years.

"They go to church every Sunday. ... Nothing but love in that family," Hooks said. "They're the best kids on the block."

Atchinson said Sha'hiim's mother had not lived with him in years.

A small, narrow road off State Street, home to no more than a few hundred people, Mynderse Street has now been the scene of deaths probed by police twice in the past year.

In February 2012, police say Ramcumar Bandhoo, 38, stabbed and killed his girlfriend and them hanged himself at 6 Mynderse St., about a block from where Sha'hiim was found Saturday morning.